New-look driving test will boost road safety, say instructors
Fact File
Total number of driving tests carried out in year to March 2011 1.6 million
Total number of passes 744,058
Percentage of men who pass first time 49
Percentage of women who pass first time 42
Most failed practical driving tests 47, by Git Kaur Randhawa,of Middlesex. She passed on the 48th attempt, in 1987.
Most failed theory tests 90. In 2011, the Driving Standards Agency revealed an unnamed would-be driver – a 26-year-old woman from Southwark – had failed her theory test 90 times.
Age of oldest person to take a driving test 90 – Gerty Edwards Land, of Colne, Lancashire, who passed first time in 1988.
The Driving Instructors Association (DIA), representing professional driving instructors, has welcomed changes to the driving theory test which came into force at the start of this week (January 23).
The test will no longer use pre-published questions. The objective is to get candidates to think through the rules from the Highway Code and how to apply them, and to interpret the meanings of road signs, rather than learning the answers to questions by rote. Revision questions, exercises, and revision support for candidates can still be found in books (and mobile phone apps) published by The Stationery Office, so learner drivers can still test themselves and see how they’re improving – they’ll just have to think on their feet more when it comes to the test.
The practical side of the driving test has already been overhauled: since October 2010, there has been a new 10-minute "independent driving section". Test routes are no longer published. These changes were, like the changes to the theory test, intended to make the exam a better test of road sense.
Steve Garrod, DIA general manager, makes some hard-hitting points: “Drivers' knowledge of the Highway Code has been on the decline since the theory test was first introduced in 1996, with very few people ever opening a copy. Simply memorising answers to the theory test will not help anyone to stay safe on increasingly busier roads and in more congested traffic conditions.... It is essential that all new drivers understand how to apply the theory [if] they are to avoid becoming another accident statistic.”
Anyone who’s taken the test recently, or seen exam-savvy teenagers cramming for it, will probably agree this is a great step forward. As will those enlightened souls who believe that if everyone understood a bit more about the Highway Code, then road manners and accident rates would probably improve overnight.
Photo: istockphoto.com
